E3A – Equine Experiential Education

How Incorporating Strengths Can Boost Your Equine Assisted Learning Programs

Leverage CliftonStrengths to give your equine assisted learning clients a more powerful experience

By Ginny Telego

Why CliftonStrengths and Horses?

For over 20 years, the Gallup organization has studied the impact of strengths-based culture on employee engagement. Their findings consistently show that organizations with a strengths-based culture have higher employee engagement. A recent Gallup article stated, “Workers who use their strengths every day are three times more likely to report having an excellent quality of life, six times more likely to be engaged at work, 8% more productive and 15% less likely to quit.”

Why does this matter to coaches and others who provide personal and professional development?

Focusing on strengths isn’t just helpful to peoples’ professional lives; it can help them thrive in all areas of their lives. Think of a time when you had to put a lot of energy into doing something that just didn’t come easy to you. Or a time when someone told you over and over what you aren’t good at and you started to believe them. It’s exhausting.

When individuals understand their strengths and are allowed to use them more fully, everyone benefits, because people want to do more of what they are good at.

I incorporate the CliftonStrengths assessment into much of my equine assisted coaching work and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly the participants’ strengths show up in their interactions with the horses. In 2020, I hosted a group of 18 professionals who are emerging community leaders for a full day equine assisted leadership workshop as part of their 9-month community leadership program. The group had completed the CliftonStrengths assessment a couple months prior to our workshop and had started to explore their strengths reports to understand what their assessment results meant. But I don’t think anyone in the group was prepared for what the horses were going to teach them about themselves and how their strengths could help or hinder accomplishing goals. While there was a plethora of “Ahas” from participants about how they show up as leaders, one participant stood out as gaining immense self-awareness from the exercises with the horses.

This young leader, I’ll call him Tom, presented himself as confident and open to the experience with the horses. The first exercise Tom was asked to complete was leading one of my miniature horses, Dolly, in a small oval shape. Tom had never led a horse before, but he volunteered to go first for his small group. I provided a bit of coaching to Tom, as the horse was providing feedback in her body language that indicated she picked up on Tom’s unsureness in leading for the first time.

Here’s where things started to get interesting. After the other five members of Tom’s group had completed the exercise, Tom asked me if he could go again. My facilitator senses tingled as I thought “All right! I can’t wait to ask about this!” In true facilitator/coach fashion, I responded to Tom’s question with a question. I said “Well, why do you want to go again?” He responded, “I’d like to see if I can do better than my first time leading her.”

Whenever I incorporate CliftonStrengths (or any assessment) into my equine assisted coaching work I print each person’s strengths on their name tags so I, and they, can refer to them throughout the experience. When Tom asked to lead Dolly a second time to see if he could improve, I immediately looked at his strengths on his name tag and saw that Competition was his number one strength. Tom and I discussed this and as he went through the rest of the day with his colleagues, doing different exercises with the horses, he saw how that strength could sometimes impede his ability to collaborate with others to accomplish the goals of the group. Competition overdone can wreak havoc on relationships – and relationships are vital to collaboration.

At the end of the workshop, each member of the group shared their takeaway from the experience with the horses and what they would do differently with that awareness. Tom’s take-away? “Not everything has to be a competition and I’ll seek other perspectives from my colleagues.”

This is just one way that incorporating CliftonStrengths with equine assisted learning can enhance the experience of your clients in learning about themselves.

If you are interested in exploring this through experiential learning, join us for the upcoming webinar Incorporating CliftonStrengths® With Your Equine Assisted Learning Practice where we’ll dive into using CliftonStrengths with adults and youth in equine assisted learning programs.

About Ginny Telego and E3A

Ginny Telego is a Master Trainer with the Equine Experiential Education Association (E3A) where she trains people to facilitate experiences with horses to transform the lives of their clients. E3A is an international professional membership organization offering training, certification, and resources for the implementation of Equine Assisted Learning (EAL) programs by educators, coaches, Professional Development trainers and other facilitators. We provide the necessary resources for the promotion and implementation of quality, successful, professional equine experiential education programs.

 

No event found!
No event found!
Why Horses Are Superior in Helping Leaders Grow and Develop Themselves and their Organizations

Why Horses Are Superior in Helping Leaders Grow and Develop Themselves and their Organizations

Have you ever sat down after a long day of leadership training and wondered what exactly you did or spent all your money and time on? You aren’t the only one — especially if the training isn’t out-of-the-box enough. Contrary to popular belief, more than 90% of human communication is non-verbal, which explains why many of us find it challenging to...

read more
Horses Model Leadership and Strong Teamwork

Horses Model Leadership and Strong Teamwork

Today's business world demands a particular set of leadership and team competencies that look different from how they used to 'back in the day.' Business leaders must find new approaches to interacting with and influencing their teams even as employees ask for more meaning, purpose, skills, and room to advance – all while dealing with significant...

read more
Coaches, consultants and mental health professionals stand out in the personal and professional development arena with equine assisted learning

Coaches, consultants and mental health professionals stand out in the personal and professional development arena with equine assisted learning

Every coach is passionate about providing the best care to their clients, which is why it’s important to adapt in order to support them. Partnering with horses through equine assisted learning helps you upgrade your coaching method so you can stand out from the crowd. Not only are equine assisted modalities beneficial for you - by improving your...

read more
What Can Horses Teach Us about Connection and Community?

What Can Horses Teach Us about Connection and Community?

Horses are prey and herd animals. Not unlike humans, they find safety in staying connected with their family and community. And like humans, they also need to live in an environment that allows for growth, mutual care and communication. So, what does this mean in the wild, and what can we learn about leadership, connection and community? What...

read more
When Life Throws You a Curve Ball, Lean on Your Strengths

When Life Throws You a Curve Ball, Lean on Your Strengths

By Lissa Pohl, MA E3A Master Trainer The Engagement Quotient Lexington, KY USA An international client recently hired me to do two equine-assisted leadership development workshops. After months of scheduling challenges my co-facilitator and I were finally able to book our tickets three days before our departure. My ADAPTABILITY and RESPONSIBILITY...

read more
Step into your power as an exceptional EAL facilitator

Step into your power as an exceptional EAL facilitator

It starts with your connection with YOU. Curious how you can go from being an “OK” facilitator to becoming an exceptional facilitator? Take a few moments to read this and decide if you are ready to learn from the Horse Masters of Interdependence. I train E3A members how to become equine-assisted learning (EAL) facilitators. In this work, I...

read more
Are you on the fence?

Are you on the fence?

By Nicole Schanen So was I. NOW I know that becoming an E3A Certified Practitioner is the best decision I ever made. If you’re reading this blog, you and I may have a few things in common. You love horses You have personally experienced their healing, transformational presence You want to help other people have that same experience You want to...

read more
Overcoming Global Challenges:

Overcoming Global Challenges:

How Horses Teach Us About Co-operation and Trust The challenges of recent times have led to people becoming more divided, fractured, disconnected. This is evident in all aspects of our lives – from our day-to-day interactions through to the global political landscape. Born to co-operate not compete Yet, according to a recent article in Nature...

read more
What We Can Learn from a Horse’s Innate Way of Being

What We Can Learn from a Horse’s Innate Way of Being

For hundreds of years, humans have believed in their supremacy over horses and worked hard to train them to do our bidding using domination and fear-based control techniques. What horses teach us In recent decades, however, the equine assisted learning movement has turned this belief on its head by showing us just how much we can learn from a...

read more
Why Self-Awareness is the Number 1 Skill for Coaches

Why Self-Awareness is the Number 1 Skill for Coaches

As coaches and equine-assisted learning (EAL) facilitators we teach our clients the importance of self-awareness. It is a core principle of effective leadership and self-improvement. But do we ever stop to examine our own self-awareness? We set out to ‘make a difference’ in the world but the onus is on us to ‘be the difference’ by becoming more...

read more
A different way of being is emerging

A different way of being is emerging

We’re living in a time of unprecedented chaos, disruption, and widely differing opinions on causes and solutions. A global pandemic, political discord, economic uncertainty, digital transformation and climate concerns. But amidst all that chaos and disruption, people are seeking sources of self-improvement, at levels never known, to not only...

read more
 E3A 2021 International Conference

 E3A 2021 International Conference

 E3A 2021 International Conference LEARNING FROM THE MASTERS: THE NEXT FRONTIER October 14-16th at the White Stallion Ranch in Tucson, AZKeynote Speaker: Dr. Steve Peters, Psy.D, ABN Equine Neuroscientist Author: Evidence-Based Horsemanship E3A is excited to offer you two options to participate in this year’s conference: On-site or Virtual.We...

read more
 E3A 2021 International Conference

 E3A 2021 International Conference

Join Us in Tucson! The 2021 E3A International Conference is kickin’ up some serious dust as it rises to new heights. An in-person and virtual presentation of “Learning from the Masters: The Next Frontier” October 14th - 16th  On-Location at the White Stallion Ranch in Tucson, AZ (OR) Live Stream via Zoom REGISTER NOW Reflections from an attendee...

read more
Conference 2021 – Your Attendance Requested

Conference 2021 – Your Attendance Requested

Interested in Attending the 2021 E3A Conference? Join our Stable of World-Class Presenters Virtually or In-Person LEARN MORE October 14th - 16th  On-Location at the White Stallion Ranch in Tucson, AZ (OR) Live Stream via Zoom LEARNING FROM THE MASTERS: THE NEXT FRONTIER REGISTRATION is now OPEN for the upcoming conference. We have secured the...

read more